I bought the fastest CPU I could afford in order to avoid overclocking. I am not sure how overclocking affects the life of a component over time so I avoid it where possible.

I am forced to overclock to my Corsair RAM to get the 1066MHz speed (by using 2.2V) as this is how this RAM is designed.

Anyway, I ran Bioshock for around 45 minutes and my temps were: CPU 20C, MB, NB abd SB all at 43C and my 8800GTX at 60C. This is consistent with my findings when I ran Crysis for an hour or so and got the same temps except the CPU was at ~30C and the 8800GTX was at ~75C. The ambient temperature of my computer room is at 16.5C according to my desk clock thermometer. The cool rrom could explain why my CPU runs coller than expected by some.

mine was at 4.2 ghz no problem. I wish I didn't get it however. I do not think its worth the price. Especially with the i7's out. However, when i bought it over a year ago, it was the best on the market

Overclocking a CPU will not really shorten its lifespan by any significant amount. The 2 major things that will shorten a CPU's lifespan are heat and voltage. Frankly unless your pumping 1.7v and letting it run at 90c all the time, your CPU will last years past its usefulness.

Still, that being said, I can understand why one would avoid overclocking, its not really that hard, but sometimes stock speeds are plenty fast enough for 24/7 usage. Hell I run the 4870X2's bone stock, mainly because I saw little to no difference in performance when they were CCC(800MHz) maxed.

You should have used quotation marks or something in the first post, I had no idea if that was you saying that or a quote from the thread until I actually read the thread itself. Call be crazy, but it wasn't exactly obvious.

I have my Q6600 overclocked, it just seems worth it for the increase of 600MHz without paying any extra money for a processor upgrade. Of course you do pay for cooling, but that's worth it. My video card is just running "stock" (as she came, anyway), because as Chilly said it doesn't seem to make a large difference. At least for me anyway... I'll have to give it another try sometime when my computer is ready to work for longer periods of time again.